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I’ve been thinking about writing a post like this for a while. I’ve made numerous minor changes to all sorts of things recently and I felt like highlighting them, but previous iterations of this post never felt particularly coherent. So, if you’re reading this, this iteration made it. Good job, iteration! The first and most extensive change was to update both the Art and Gaming pages here on Moggie’s Proclamations, which should (hopefully) make it easier to find what you’re looking for. Regardless of what it is or when it was originally posted.

This includes new sections for both of the pages, too.

These were the last few changes I wanted to make to the structure of the blog. Now that they’re implemented I’m free to update older content so that it can fit into the new structure, which mostly involves either new categorisation or presentation adjustments for those posts. It’s a background process in many ways. I’m actively working on it, but it doesn’t take priority.

The second change was to slightly adjust the presentation on my personal site by adding new thumbnails. These are slightly larger, lack the text, and I can only fit nine (instead of ten) per page. However, the loss of one thumbnail per page isn’t particularly notable. I’ve wanted to adopt a stronger visual presentation for my personal site for a while, which these thumbnails do and they’re incredibly easy to change back if I become dissatisfied with them. I can quite literally grab the old folder and throw it onto my server. I actually made that change a while ago (or a work in progress version of it) and liked it enough to finalise it. So, if nothing else, that gives me hope that this was a good idea. I couldn’t be wrong twice, right? Right?!

With the aforementioned changes now in place I’m feeling particularly good about how things are going. There are still improvements to be made- and there always will be- but I’m happy with the state of things as they are. I’m looking at YouTube and Twitch fairly closely, too. There are opportunities for both creative and gaming content on either of those channels. It’s definitely easier to put together videos as and when I have the time rather than set streaming schedules, but both are viable and I should keep both in mind.

It’d be neat to do some creative videos.

One thing that was painfully evident while updating my personal site is that I need to do more finished pieces. I’m definitely not seeing the correct representation of recent attempts. Mostly because many of those recent attempts have been material studies, which don’t make it to my personal site. So I’ve been wondering whether they should in the future.

I can only apologise for the erratic posting schedule of late. I’m still somewhat happy with it just because I’m only really posting when I have things to talk about, but I’d like to be more consistent. In so many ways. That said, I’m hoping that once I’ve worked through the infuriating indecision that I discussed in Mushroom Fluidity things will improve. At least creatively. So that’s something for both of us to look forward to. In any case, I do like to talk about the things I’m currently doing or will be doing in the future even if it’s not the most riveting content. That and now you can click on all of the above links and be astounded by the exceptional changes. Should keep you busy for a little while.

Have a nice weekend, all!

Moggie

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I’ve spent some time updating my personal website recently! You should head on over to David Wilkshire.co.uk and check it out. I promise it’s pretty neat. If this surprises you- it surprises me, too! I wasn’t expecting to work on that particular element of this (increasingly complex) formula. Especially when you reflect on my ill fated attempts at trying to update the thumbnails for the umpteenth time, however therein lies the reason that I finally decided to change the site around in the way that I did.

While the thumbnails remain the same not much else does.

You’ll probably notice that the sections have changed drastically and that we’re a few shy of the number we used to have. I decided that it would probably be best to remove any which leaned on certain materials, as I may not be using those materials as much (if at all) in the future. It didn’t seem to make as much sense as it once did. Not that I disagree with the original idea, either.

It was a pretty good idea. I broke everything up into sections based on their particular materials, which does have merit and does help you find the particular things you’re looking for but it’s also rather convoluted. As, if you like my pencil illustrations, it’s reasonable to suggest that you’d enjoy my ink illustrations. Or marker illustrations. Or even digital illustrations. So it didn’t really seem to fit, both for the outdated concepts and the fact that I’m not going to be the one to use this site to find my work. You are. If I want to find various things I’ve done I’ve got myriad directories to explore. It’s also built a little more around HTML and CSS than around graphical elements now.

Pretty neat, no?

There’s no particular reason for that change, though. I just felt it would be nice to be able to create the same thing but without having to rely on a singular large graphic to do it. Now I get a relatively similar effect- but this one is built from many different things. I’ve also got a thing for horizontal rules, now. Damn those sexy lines. That said, it’s quite an extensive change and now I’ve got the task of updating various links in various places. Thankfully these updates only need to happen for the two sections I’ve removed.

The other two are pretty much as they were.

Actually changing a link can be done in a matter of seconds- it’s just finding the sneaky buggers. Once this post has been published most of the major links on Moggie’s Proclamations will already have been changed, but I will be updating more over the course of the next week or so. But, in case I do miss the odd one here or there, I’ll be leaving the old directories up for a while.

So I doubt that things will break too badly. If at all. I’ll admit- it’s a pretty ambitious change. But it’s one that I felt was necessary for the betterment of the site and my content as a whole, which hopefully will not only mean it’s better presented but easier to find in the future. Apologies for not sharing more creative content recently. I’m still working through a good few things and it might be a little while longer before I’m able to share things. That said, if you’re interested in a recent creative effort or something I dug out of my archives you should head on over to Twitter. I’m always sharing various bits and pieces over there. In any case, I hope you like the changes and that the new site is not too confusing.

Have a nice weekend, all!

Moggie

Art, design, and the like found herein (unless otherwise specified) is drawn and owned by David Wilkshire (also credited as Moggie) from 2006 to present date.

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One of the few things I’ve always been slightly bothered by with this blog is how the older content stands out. In a bad way. Not to say that the content itself is bad- in most cases it’s quite good- but that it lacks the presentation I’d like it to have. There are a few reasons for this. Mostly that the older content was written without many of the changes I’ve made in the last couple of years. The pages which outline the various aspects of the blog, the expanded category system, and even scheduling posts have made a difference there.

So I’ve been adjusting things here and there. Slowly but surely.

It’s something I’ve talked about before. It’s also something which I’ve said is not a major concern of mine, and, as such, will not take time away from the creation of new content. But recently I’ve seen the potential to finally bring everything to a level of consistency (and quality) that I want it to be at. So I’ve invested the time to make it happen.

The changes mostly exist in the posts themselves, but there are a few changes that everyone can benefit from (and enjoy) such as the new child categories. It’s now much easier to find both the First Impressions and Review posts. It’s a minor change but one that makes it easier to access content- especially if that’s the content you’d like to see. As I’ve mentioned in the past, the great thing about designing anything that someone else will use is trying to imagine what it’s like from their perspective. It may make sense to look for things in a certain place to me. But, to you, the user, if you can’t find something- it’s kind of useless. So I’m hoping these changes will make certain things easier to find and/or digest.

Not that I would ever suggest eating any of my posts. This process also gives me a certain amount of clarity as to how things are progressing. It’s interesting seeing the changes I’ve made over the years, it’s equally as interesting that I’m actually quite happy with things as they are now. I think we’ve got a good thing going on. That’s mostly interesting because I tend to be quite critical of myself. To actually be happy with something either means I’m becoming less critical or I’m doing things that I like.

Both of which are fairly positive results.

I would have preferred to bring you new content with this post, but I’ve been doing a lot of smaller experimental pieces recently and I don’t have anything reasonably coherent to share. Oddly, many of these have been related to digital painting. Who knew I’d dig that up again? Me. To be entirely honest. It’s always been fairly fun to do.

I’m starting to understand more about my weaknesses therein. I’d say that my use of colour and texture are among my strengths, but the initial sketching is pretty weak. I seemingly can’t sketch for love nor money with a tablet- but I can sketch with traditional materials. Mostly. I wasn’t intending to do coloured lined pieces with digital painting, but it might not be an entirely terrible idea even if it’s only for a short while. The only problem being that recent ink pieces aren’t really conducive to that approach. That said, I’ve always had fairly simple line art for watercolour paintings like Grotti v2. Which, thankfully, I scanned before painting. So there are a few ways to practice this new approach through those.

Have a nice weekend, all!

Moggie

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The protractor always said the compass was acute and they weren’t just talking about their angles! I’ll admit- that was terrible. But the rest of the post won’t be. Hopefully. I guess it really depends on your definition of terrible, though. I wanted to talk about the general state of things today. I haven’t written a post like this since Archive of Experiences earlier in the year, where I talked about the content creation process and what I’d like to do next. Now we get to reflect on whether I did those things or not.

I think you’ll agree that the recent content has been of higher quality, has been more diverse, and that overall they’ve been more engaging posts. Leaning a little heavier on gaming content at the moment, with some posts covering one my favourite series of all time and some focusing on my adventures in World of Warcraft. Gaming content will be the focus of some minor updates on Moggie’s Proclamations in the coming weeks, too. As I’ve pretty much got the creative content right where I want it. Now to explain my nefarious scheme in detail only for it to escape and foil me once more. Not sure why it would want to stab me with a fencing sword- but we can figure that out later.

Scheduling has also encountered a slight change recently.

I’ve decided to push back the publishing/scheduling time a little to make it easier to work around things outside of this. Hopefully this won’t change how people interact with the content too drastically. But, if it does, I’ll change it accordingly. The frequency of posts remains as was so there will be just as much content as before. Just a little later in the day.

There may be some minor changes coming to the collection of sites, too. I’ve been thinking about changing the header/cover images. I just need to think of a decent design, design it, upload it, and then tinker endlessly until it looks right on every site. I wish I could say I was being sarcastic but that’s how it goes. That won’t affect the creation of new content, though. Nor can I give a definite date as to when I’ll be ready with it. It’s not a major concern at the moment as I quite like my current header/cover image.

I haven’t got any new sites or major changes to talk about, either. I was considering actually using my Twitch account and doing some streaming at some point. The odd one here or there, to gauge interest, to see what it’s like, and to see whether it’s worth an investment of time. Probably something like Fallout 3 at first. Given it’s something I know quite well, it’s easy to record, and it shouldn’t cause too many problems. Just as long as I turn off the radio stations. There are still a few things to set up before that will be available, though. Like the possibility of using OBS to record/stream, as I’ve heard that has been updated considerably since I last looked into it.

I hope that everyone is still enjoying the content and that they’re excited to see more.

You can always drop me a comment or two. Tell me what you like, what you don’t like, what you’d like to see more of, what you’d like to see less of, or even what breed of cat is your favourite. It doesn’t even need to be a domestic cat, either. I’m open to all kinds of suggestions. Some I will only indulge in after dark, though.

Have a nice weekend, all!

Moggie

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Just a short post today detailing what happened following Eight Months Lost. While I would prefer to keep my Google+ page (for the effort invested if nothing else), it’s probably best that in light of recent events that I just clear the page of content completely. Not that there’s much content left to clear on there. It will still exist as a bridge between other pages but it won’t serve any purpose on its own. Which isn’t entirely a loss as it doesn’t really have much of a following at the moment. Not to mention that it’s only because of the weird way that Google+ chooses to work that I even wanted/needed the collections in the first place.

I’ll be removing links that point in that direction across the collection of sites over the rest of this week.

I’ll be adding more of those as and when I see the need to. I won’t be doing them for everything I talk about on here as I would literally have no end to new categories, but instead for things that are regularly talked about. They won’t be individual when regarding multiple titles from a single series, either. It’ll be one collected category for an entire series. These are changes that will be coming over the course of this week, too. So if you don’t see them immediately- they’ll be here soon. If they’re not here soon then I’ve probably been abducted by aliens.

I hope I don’t get abducted, though. Those implements look awful long, hard, and cold for where they’ll be going. Or, at worst, it will be Mothership Zeta all over again. Which is terrible as I have prime real estate in Megaton which could make me a fortune. Not that I could spend it in space- but, still!

Have a nice week, all!

Moggie

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Google+ did a thing. Or, rather, I did a thing that Google+ misinterpreted and now I’m missing a whole chunk of content. As in (an estimated) 60-65% of all of the posts I’d previously shared over there, with the only exceptions being anything that was in the creative collection. Ironically this all started with a collection, too. As I wanted to set up a new collection to hold all of my Moggie @ WordPress posts to make the page more organised. However, many things occurred that shouldn’t have occurred.

Most notable of these was that it didn’t move the posts to the collection- it shared them.

Which means, as they were never part of the collection, merely shared to it, they shouldn’t have been deleted when I removed the collection as it wasn’t working correctly. Indicated by that fact that (unlike the creative collection) everything added to the new collection was shared to my main feed. Kind of like I’d shared external content onto my page. Needless to say, I was incredibly confused as I’d only shared a new post to the creative collection not five minutes prior- and that worked fine. It quickly became apparent that posts were missing when I reloaded the main page feed. Then, after skimming the remaining posts, it became painfully obvious that everything that wasn’t a creative post was now gone.

With that I’ve lost a considerable portion of eight months worth of work. There doesn’t seem to be any way to recover my Google+ page and revert it to a previous state, either. So I’m pretty sure the posts are not coming back. This doesn’t really leave me with that many options (and many of the options I do have aren’t that appealing).

Which probably means I’ll be clearing the remaining content on Google+ soon. As while there are ways for me to fix this- I really don’t know if it’s worth the time. Something I’ve noticed recently is that Google+ doesn’t give you any sort of page statistics if you’re under two hundred followers, and as such it doesn’t help me understand how or why I’m getting views. There also seems to be a broad disparity between the results per post and the overall page results. For instance, I’m at nearly six thousand views and yet the highest viewed post is under forty.

Most posts are under five and the remainder all sit at a lonely zero.

So how, why, or from where I got those six thousand views I don’t know. Given that the primary reason that you have statistics is to see how people found you, what they were looking for, to give an indication of if it was relevant to their initial query, and how long they’ve viewed your content it’s odd that Google+ has hidden this. Especially considering YouTube has a wealth of statistics that can even tell me really specific (possibly irrelevant) details. Like whether someone viewed my content as it was suggested to them and then whether they followed on to my profile page. In this way, I’m not sure if keeping the page as a backup social media site is even worth it. Unless I can get the followers that I need in order to access this information.

I’ll make a decision regarding Google+ by the end of this month. There is a chance that I might not remove the other content, but it’s likely that it will become a social media page to bridge the others together opposed to one that has a singular purpose. Any links that point that way will likely be removed, too.

Have a nice weekend, all!

Moggie

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Have you been enjoying the recent introduction of new and different creative posts? I hope you have. I was thinking about Moggie’s Proclamations the other day and realised that, while there are two major focuses here, gaming has always had more diverse and interesting posts. Sometimes this is simply a case of it being easier to produce those kind of posts for gaming topics. For instance, it’s pretty easy and non-intrusive to just flick the switch on my recording software and capture some footage.

However, there are a number of times where I’ll talk about something I’m playing at the moment, or something I’m looking forward to, and even if it doesn’t connect to anything else I’ll still post it. Like a passing thought of sorts. Across Auriga is a good example of a post like that. It’s an isolated thought relating to something that I may or may not do a review post about later.

I haven’t done too many creative posts like that before.

Things like the recent Bleeding Ink or the not so recent Painting Pencil. Where I’ll be looking at a particular idea, style, or a new way to approach something with a different material (or an unusual combination of materials). These are the kinds of posts I’d like to do more often for creative topics. Focusing solely on finished pieces or things that will be included on my personal site is a very narrow content creation pattern. That said, as I’ve said before, I don’t want to flood the blog with pointless fluff posts to pad out the times where I have less content than others. If there are any specific kinds of posts you’d like to see- leave me a comment! I’ll do my best to accommodate where possible.

I’m also trying to be more open about the kind of content I’d like to produce in the future. I know that’s something I haven’t done much prior to the last twelve months, but I feel it’s a necessary evolution for me to continue to enjoy what I do here. I’m not really focusing too much on changing layouts, or adding new social media sites, or introducing major new features at the moment. I’m focusing on updating content, making it consistent, producing more, and hopefully producing things which are new and exciting for the readers.

I don’t think either of the two major focuses could exist without the other, though. I don’t feel that I could write about various video games consistently enough, nor that there would be enough content to form creative posts to fill the time available. Therefore, it’s unlikely we’ll see a shift from both at once to one or the other singularly. Doesn’t seem feasible.

While this can be considered a personal blog- it isn’t.

It is about my personal experiences, interests, and hobbies but not so much about me as a person. It’s more like an archive of experiences. In any case, I wanted to see how everyone was enjoying the recent creative posts and to give some insight into where things are going. This in and of itself is a pretty unconventional post for Moggie’s Proclamations, but times have changed and I want to give the readers a little more information on what to expect in the future. As always, I’ll be adjusting older content here and there to make sure it remains consistent to the overall theme here. But hopefully we’ll start to see some really interesting new content, too!